1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a data collection method and a data collection system and particularly to a data collection method and a data collection system that collect information indicating a status of a part of a vehicle from the vehicle after shipment from a factory.
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-213324 (JP 2007-213324 A) discloses a technique that transmits data relating to the vehicle from the vehicle. In this technique, vehicle driving information indicating the driving status of the vehicle is collected in the vehicle and stored on a data logger. Stored vehicle driving information is periodically transferred from an on-vehicle terminal to a driving evaluation server through a communication network.
In recent years, vehicles such as electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles that are equipped with a traction motor and a battery attract attention. Regarding such vehicles, it is desirable to collect much more data about how the battery is used in the market in order to improve the reliability of the vehicle to be developed in the near future.
On the vehicle, information relating to the battery is measured or estimated to be used for vehicle control. Thus, it is conceivable that the information relating to the battery is stored in a memory and the like in the vehicle. However, in order to collect the stored information, it is required that an information collection device is physically connected to the memory in the vehicle to acquire the information, or a unit that includes the memory storing the information (for example, a battery monitoring ECU) is obtained from the vehicle.
JP 2007-213324 A describes a system that periodically transmits the data from the vehicle to the server through the communication network. However, the technique disclosed in the above publication is to collect the vehicle driving information through a network to make possible an appropriate evaluation of the vehicle in a used car market, and there is no description nor suggestion in the cited publication about collection and management of the information on the battery that is mounted on the hybrid vehicle or the electric vehicle for each vehicle.